


The Duties of a Master

by chattering_tchotchke



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Recovery, and attempts to fix Questionable Canon with a left handed flanch tuner, starring my salt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-03-06 00:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18839590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chattering_tchotchke/pseuds/chattering_tchotchke
Summary: Aqua can remember when she learned of the tasks a Keyblade Master had.  She never learned how to do them.They aren’t easy.





	1. To Guard at Night—from Any and All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lack of sleep can lead to many things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn’t going to post this until tomorrow, but reflection led me to conclude that I’d be too miserable to do it then, because I’m getting my wisdom teeth pulled and will basically be doing nothing all weekend. Hooray.  
> Content warning for rather heavy references to depression

Aqua wakes up suddenly, her throat parched. There’s a vague feeling of drowning from a few seconds ago. She can’t remember why. It must have been a nightmare—they’re so frequent these days—but she can’t remember what it was about. That’s probably better. If she remembered, she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Like last night, when she swore she could still hear a Heartless scuttling around after she had awoken.

It’s quiet around her, the faint ringing in her ears only broken by Terra’s deep, steady breaths. It’s a relief that she hasn’t woken up thrashing and heaving for air, so loudly that he then wakes up. She can take comfort, too, knowing that he’s with her. None of them can sleep alone and Ven, in the next room over, has Chirithy to be with him. None of them can sleep alone and they all have their ways to deal with that.

The nightlight that usually glows through the room is flickering at random; something must be wrong with the bulb. It’s buzzing, too, so probably well on its way to burning out. It’ll have to be replaced sometime then, whenever that might be. Still, the room’s atmosphere is steady and peaceful. Nothing’s wrong, not now. She’s alright, they’re all alright.

She’s thirsty.

She would have gotten up to get a glass of water, but she can’t bring herself to move. It takes her by a dull version of surprise, but it’s perfectly understandable. She hasn’t been able to sleep much recently—she’s just too tired to move. It’s fine, she’ll just have to go back to sleep. She has to be rested for tomorrow, after all.

But closing her eyes only washes them with an odd, acidic sensation. It’s on the verge of crusting on her vision, though it somehow doesn’t. She won’t be able to sleep now, not with that starting to gel over her exhaustion and ruin it. There’s nothing to do but wait it out. The nightlight blinks out for a brief moment, and its afterimage floats up into the corner, settling there comfortably.

It bobs up and down, only the smallest distance either way. The bulb flickers a second time, then again, then in rapid succession, too many times to count. Every ensuring blue-black splotch meets with the first in that corner, growing into a writhing _mass—_

No. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just the afterimages collecting on her eyes; it’s not _really_ there. It’s not a Heartless, it’s not. Just her imagination. It pulses gently now, growing and shrinking in time with Terra’s breaths. Aqua stares at it more, until the lemon juice gel slips off her eyes—and that could have taken minutes or hours. But who’s counting those when time’s changed its meaning so many times? The bulb keeps buzzing.

Her eyes turn upwards toward the ceiling, taking them off the blob. It’s still there, right at the upper left corner of her vision. It’s because it’s an afterimage stuck on her eyes, of course, but it’s still unsettling. It still pulses softly, growing and growing above her.

The blue-black it had previously been is now purple and green and gray in addition to the previous two, all of them so sickly _garish_ that all of a sudden she wants to vomit. Somewhere floating around in all of those is spots of white, and Aqua can swear that there are flashes of grinning yellow eyes, though they always vanish before she can really see them. Nothing makes sense, and her panic is only growing.

She gets the most awful thought that connects the splotch above her to that shadow that had towered over them all at the Graveyard. He’d—she refuses to say his name or acknowledge him anymore; she won’t let him back into her mind because he doesn’t _deserve_ the privilege of being in her thoughts—almost smiled, she’d thought. It had been so hard to see in the swirling blacks and purples, vanishing from sight inside them, but it had been there.

As if in response to her thoughts, the thing above her arranges itself into a grinning face. It’s only inches away from her own—when had it gotten so close? It’s sitting on her, _this_ is what’s been stopping her from moving.

It unhinges its jaw, letting loose an ██████████████████████████████████████████ that echoes side by side with the ringing in her ears that still hasn’t stopped. Aqua blinks, and it’s gone.

She can’t understand the thing that lingers in her chest. A black hole, maybe, crushing her in its path. It’s growing, too, stealing the air from her lungs, taking over her arms and legs and tingling there. Light, she hates how she can’t fully feel the pins and needles—for all she knows, they could be stuck in so deep they’re out the other side.

If she could, she’d be shaking where she lays, but it freezes her body and arrests any attempt to move. She can’t breathe.  
Waves roar in her ears, blocking out everything except the ringing. She can’t hear Terra now—is he even there? She can’t turn her head to check. She can’t reach out an arm to touch his side. She’s all alone. Nothing there except for—

It’s gone, but— no, it’s still here. Just out of sight, waiting for her to let her guard down. There’s no doubt of that. It couldn’t be anywhere else. She can still feel its presence in every dark space when the nightlight flickers.

It pops above Terra, on the edge of her vision. At the foot of the bed. At the side. Right near her face. Only flashes for an instant, so quick she can’t tell if it’s really there or not. Like it’s mocking her, like that one Heartless that had hid and chased her for days. It’s just lying in wait; that’s exactly the kind of game things like that play. Then the bulb finally burns out and it’s on top of her.

██████████████, it hisses into her face. Again that sound. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Aqua almost knows that it doesn’t make sense. She can’t know this, though, through the overwhelming panic that there’s something sitting on her chest _that’s going to kill her_. It’s going to smother her; she already can’t breathe through the pressure.

██████████████████████████████████████████. Whatever it’s saying, it goes straight through her skull and pulls out any confidence she had left in herself. She’s hopeless, helpless like this, unable to do anything except watch. Aqua hates it, or would if she wasn’t so filled with such mind-numbing panic.

_Pathetic. You really can’t do anything for yourself, huh?_

Completely useless. Just someone who everyone else has to pick up the slack for, again.

_“Aqua?”_

It shouldn’t have gotten through the wards in the first place, but that doesn’t matter now because it did, and now it’s here, ready to kill her when she can’t do anything. She didn’t set up the wards right. She must’ve done something wrong, however big or small, and not have noticed it. She hadn’t guarded the castle properly, and it’s caught up to her tonight.

She’s sinking through her sheets and mattress. Her vision blurs and she’s underwater, dropping down as the acidic stuff comes back, spreading over her eyes and chest and arms and legs pin-prickling every part of her body _maybe it’d be for the better if it k—_

_“Aqua!”_

Everything flashes away in an instant, and the only thing above her is— Chirithy? It’s standing by her side, patting at her cheek with a paw that feels vaguely like it’s full of fluff. The other paw is clutching at its purse. She realizes now that she’s never felt it before now—it had only let Ventus hold it.

“You’re awake.”

Aqua can’t tell if this is an observation or a fact.

“Yeah...” Her throat is burning with dryness; the response comes out as a weak croak. She makes to push herself up, though her now-shaking limbs protest and decide to become noodles. As she sinks back onto the pillow, Chirithy comes closer, tilting its head as it examines her.

“Do you need me to get you anything?”

She swallows the lump of hot tears that’s built up in the base of her neck. Her throat practically shatters, thin cracks already spreading over the porcelain coating. There wasn’t anything wrong. It was a dream, that was all. Just— a dream. She almost wishes she could be scared again; that would make more sense than the gaping nothing that guts her.

Shaking her head no, she pushes herself out of bed, succeeding this time, and half walks, half flops to the dresser. She pours herself a glass from the pitcher there.

_Small sips. Don’t make yourself sick._

Chirithy is still standing on the bed, intently watching her drink—at least she thinks it’s intently. The only expressions it visibly makes are with its ears, currently perked up. She eyes it back as she drains the glass, unsure of how to handle this situation.  
Still thirsty, she sets the glass down and walks back to bed. It plops next to her on the side.

“You didn’t _have_ to get out of bed for that. I could’ve helped, you know.” The tips of its ears flop down as it examines the clasp on its purse. An image of the tiny figure wobbling around with a pitcher of water half its size suddenly comes to mind. It’s not funny.

“I’m fine.” Maybe that came out too harshly. She tries again. “Chirithy, I’m perfectly able to get myself a glass of water.”

“Hmm. Okay then.” Its ears fold down further, now in half. Unconvinced.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help, Chirithy. I just— needed to do it myself.”

It pauses for a second, then nods. “I see. It’s good to do things for yourself.” Aqua supposes that they’re at an understanding now; its ears unfold.

They sit there a while more. Terra stirs briefly, then stops. She’s not afraid of him waking—he’s a deep sleeper; hardly anything can wake him. And, with Chirithy in the room, he won’t have any nightmares.

Her heart pounds in her throat, stubbornly refusing to migrate back down to her chest. It’s roaring in her ears. Too quiet. She can’t listen to it anymore.

“Shouldn’t— why aren’t you with Ven?” Was that confrontational? “I’m, sorry, I—”

“—he woke up a while ago.” Chirithy interrupts. “He couldn’t get back to sleep, so now he’s reading. I just left because I needed to come here, and he wanted to be alone for a bit.”

“So...why did you need to come over here?” Maybe she already knows the answer to this question, but it’s better to not assume and think too much. She doesn’t know when that started happening, when she started to stop thinking.

It considers the question for a few seconds, looking into the corner of the room by the door. “I saw that you were having a nightmare again, so I came to help. It was a little hard to eat, so I thought it’d be quicker to wake you up.”

“Thank you. I did need that— wait, again?” She remembers hearing what she had thought was a Heartless, in that flash of panic after she woke up. So it wasn’t just her imagination.

“Oh, last night. I don’t know if I was able to get all of it, though. I think I’m out of practice.”

“...ah.” That makes sense.

“Do...do you want to talk about it?”

“I just thought there was—” What did she think there was, again? “—thought I saw a Heartless. Hiding— and going around the room— there was one like that down there so I— stalked me for days, I think, and it almost— it’s fine, ‘s fine, it just—”

She rubs tiny crusts out of the corners of her eyes. “It was like I was back there.” No need to extrapolate on the “there.” She’s not going back to dwell on things like that. Isn’t that what a Master is supposed to do, always be able to move on and be strong for their charges? But who knows—she doesn’t.

“I see. It’d be hard to stop being on edge after so long, I’d think. That’s okay.”

“Mhm.” She’s exhausted now. Everything’s too exhausting, even talking about things she needs—doesn’t need—to talk about. Hardly the energized, ever-vigilant behavior befitting of a Master.

“Are you...feeling okay?”

_Now that’s the hundred-munny question, isn’t it?_

“I don’t know, I’m just...tired, I guess.” Some days she can only make herself get out of bed because she has to be the Master that the Land of Departure needs. It doesn’t make sense. The old itch comes back, sitting at the back of her head like it does whenever she thinks too hard about it. It’ll break apart into a larger fuzz if she goes on, so she doesn’t.

“Well...” Chirithy sits up straighter, musing over what next to say. “You were in the Realm of Darkness for a very long time. It’s no wonder you were so tired when you got out. Anyone would be.”

“But I was only in there because I went. I— I put myself in that place.” Threw herself in to make sure Terra wouldn’t be. Knowing everything now, Aqua has no idea what would’ve happened to him if he had been allowed to freely roam there, in a freezing hellscape oversaturated with Darkness. She’d barely made it herself.

Someone has to be there to blame for that, and that bastard went off happily. _Both of them._ She shook her head of that last thought. Ven didn’t do anything, and Terra was strung along the whole way. That left one person. “Why should I be tired, then?”

It tilts its head in confusion. “You mean, why _shouldn’t_  you be tired?”

”Sure.”

Chirithy is silent for a moment, fiddling with the purse it always carries that’s stuffed full of whatever it had decided to put in it. “You don’t regret it.”

”No.” It’s the answer that comes first, that comes most naturally to her. “But I do regret that I didn’t try harder to see what was happening.  I—”

 _So, how many people lost their hearts because of that little stunt? How many worlds fell to the Darkness? Look at all the blood on your hands. Was Terra really worth all that pain, or are you just too selfish to think? When_ ever _are you going to learn that your actions have consequences?_

“—let Xe-Xehanort back into the worlds,” she chokes a bit, the lump getting hotter and bigger without warning, though she might’ve just gagged on his name. “Even if I didn’t know what had happened to Terra, I should’ve known something was wrong, but I just— I didn’t think.” None of this would’ve happened if she’d thought it through. The thick bubble in her throat refuses to burst and be done.

“And I’m so scared that even if I had known, I— I don’t know what I would’ve done.” She’s pushing her luck, going so far in this state. “I don’t know—” and she doesn’t know what it is that she doesn’t know. A mental block is on every possible bad choice, one too big for her to shove aside.

“But...you didn’t know anyway, and that can’t change. And you didn’t make all those worlds fall to Darkness. You didn’t make that choice.”

“Isn’t that same thing? I made it possible for it to happen.” She can’t even begin to describe the extent of the “it,” her throat cuts her off, too guilty to own up to anything.

“No. I think you made one of the better choices out of all the ones you had.”

That doesn’t sound right. She swallows the lump, pushing it down enough to almost snap it in two.

“Chirithy, I’m sorry; I know you were at the meeting, but that doesn’t mean you understand everything about—”

“—I _know!_ So that’s why you need to talk to Ven and Terra about this.”

Her mind screeches to a halt. _No. Just suffocate by yourself, don’t drag them_ _into it. You’ll ruin them. You ruin everything, actually._ “Wh—”

“I’m not the person you need to talk to, Aqua.” Chirithy’s voice is firm, maybe angry, and even with its ears turned backward, it’s obviously not going to budge on anything. “I’ve only heard a bit, but this is something you need to talk about with them, not me. They’ll understand more because they’ve lived through this too. You don’t have to be alone,” and its voice takes on a gentler tone.

She’s exhausted again and still can’t understand why. She wants to protest that she can’t sleep now, and that she’s fine with that, and that why won’t Chirithy understand that this _is_ her fault? Her head’s turned into a lump of bricks; she can’t think as she drops down on the pillow. “But I—”

“No buts,” it interjects, pushing her down more and pulling the comforter over her. “You need to sleep.”

“Uh,” she tries. She tries, at least until the little creature puts a soft paw to her lips.

“You need to sleep; it’ll get a little better when you wake up. Don’t sleep on your back, though. Go on your side; that’ll help.” With that little piece of advice, Chirithy leaves.

So she lays there for long enough to forget when she falls asleep again. At least, when she wakes up, she’s stopped choking on her tears. But they’ve traveled out of her throat and onto her cheeks in shiny, hardened streaks.

The birds are singing, somewhere far away on one of the mountainsides. Sometime during the night, Terra curled up closer to her. He’s still asleep, and Aqua leans her head into his chest. She’ll recast the wards today. Maybe to— no, it’ll be today.

She doesn’t want to leave the bed. It’s too comforting, a needed familiarity after years apart. This moment doesn’t need her to do anything; it could be a constant whether or not she fails. Not knowing how to deal with everything isn’t a problem. Using up energy for pointless things isn’t a problem, not when you don’t do anything. But she’d be useless then. That’d just be the easy way.

And being a Master is never easy. She has to be strong. Aqua forces herself out of bed and walks to the bathroom to wash her face. A Master has to be strong. If she isn’t, what kind of Master is she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aqua’s mindset at the end is not healthy, and I don’t want it to be taken as such. It’s more that she doesn’t know how to deal with her depression, or what’s happening in the first place. So I’m considering making a saga starring a therapist OC who lives in Radiant Garden, mostly because everyone needs that.


	2. To Stand at the End—with Head Held High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events don’t always turn out the best way. Neither do discussions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for descriptions of depression

By the time Aqua walks out of the bathroom, Terra is awake and sitting on the side of the bed.

He gets up to walk toward her, and their bodies end up pushing against each other, bumping together until arms circle around backs and every curve fits another. They don’t shift into different positions anymore, trying for the perfect one. They don’t have to; they’ve figured that out at least.

Just as they’re about to break apart, she hugs him tighter, not knowing why until she recognizes the situation. It’s one of _those_ mornings, the ones that share the theme of a long embrace they both fall into—somehow. It’s one of those mornings when they realize that more affection is needed, in any way they can give or find it, to get them through the day.

She can’t remember exactly when it was, but she remembers every detail of the first time they fell into each other with the realization that _that_ achy need roared in both of their chests. Aqua doesn’t know if they’re doing it the right way, or the wrong way, or if they should be like this at all, but what else can they do? Even if neither knows anything about how to form a relationship, they have to try something. Perhaps it is unbefitting of both of them, but they can’t help it. Every time she feels his arms around her back or her head on his shoulder, her brain practically short-circuits, and he’s confessed the same.

Terra is always so warm, and his heart thumps such a steady—

She really shouldn’t. Something screams inside that _you’re the Master of this castle, why are you distracting yourself so, why—_ but Aqua can’t bring herself to care about that voice. Then again, she can’t bring herself to care about much these days, and anything that concerns herself is a mile off the bottom of that list. However unhealthy that is, which is probably very, but she’s just so tired.

Of course they have to pull away eventually; the moment can’t last forever, even as much as she wants it to. They’ve got— _things_ to do, even if there’s not much point to the endless routine. It’s going to be another day, she muses as Terra walks down to the kitchen.

Chirithy had been right, though. Sleeping had helped her, if only a bit, to see the other side. It hadn’t done anything to lessen the enormous weight attached right at the center of her chest, dragging her over the edge.

_So what if you didn’t do anything wrong? I’m not saying that you didn’t, just— why shouldn’t you be feeling horrible?_

_**That isn’t—** _

_Shut up._

But she really needs to get dressed. Oh, yes, and Chirithy had insisted that she talk to Terra and Ven. Later, she’ll do it, after breakfast. That’ll be enough time to figure out something to say. Or not. There’s probably no exact way to spit everything out, but she’ll manage. If she’s managed with all her other duties so far, she’ll manage with this.

Just tell them what she thinks. That seems reasonable enough. Tell them how she feels _but leave out the fog don’t forget._ Getting it off her chest should, at the very least, help with some of the—

Her mind scratches at the back of her head, demanding that she stop thinking or it’ll shred her thoughts. Aqua simply can’t see the point of that; her thoughts are scrambled enough. But it hurts too much already, so she concedes. It isn’t fair.

Dressing is simpler than most things and that’s a blessing. There’s no need to agonize over what is or isn’t right for the occasion, her training clothes will be enough for today. She manages to pick them out of the one dresser drawer she’s shoved full of clothes. They’re comfortable and familiar enough that she feels better wearing them, somehow.

She ends up in the kitchen, not remembering walking down the stairs. One counter is filled with vegetables, eggs, and a cutting board with a knife balanced over the edge. Beside it, Ven’s frying a scramble of all the previous, handing pieces of food to Chirithy on occasion. That’s one thing she won’t have to make herself do, she supposes.

Chirithy, standing on the counter and happily taking everything Ven gives it, gives her a pointed look with its solid black eyes, as if to remind her of their late-night conversation. There’s no need, really, but she supposes it might have wanted to just in case.

“Morning, Aqua,” Ven chirps from his position at the stove. He gives Chirithy a piece of bacon.

“You’re—” she almost notes that he’s up early before remembering that he couldn’t sleep last night. He’s in a good mood now; she shouldn’t bring that up. “—I didn’t expect that you’d be cooking this morning.” There. She’s avoided that abysmal topic. “What’s in it?”

“Taste it and find out!” He scoops food onto a plate as he talks and sounds so proud of himself. He should be; it looks amazing.

But it’s practically ash in her mouth, the barest hints of things she can’t identify poking through only rarely. She’s tired. That must be why it’s tasteless; she can’t feel anything through the jar of fog on her head, closed over her neck. Or maybe she’s sick.

Chewing every bite with care doesn’t do anything to cut through the ash. It just turns sticky in her mouth, every bite growing until it’s a lump she has to swallow.

She takes another forkful and forces her mouth to open. The ashen taste doesn’t let up.

“Aqua?”

The roaring in her ears keeps on, refusing to let up or lift from the rest of her face. “Yes,” she says, not lifting her eyes from her plate. Hopefully that isn’t rude.

“What do you think?” Ven is radiating sunshine from every pore. She can’t bring herself to tell him that she can’t taste his meal.

“It’s very good,” she says. She hates that she has to almost lie to him like this, but the little she can taste is good, so is that really a lie? Looking up at him, she gives him a smile. “You did a great job.”

_Useless liar._

“Thanks! Do you know where—”

His question is interrupted with Terra’s arrival. So he hadn’t gone straight down to the kitchen after all, but where—ah. He’d gone outside to Master Eraqus’s grave again. She doesn’t like that he goes there so much by himself; for all she knows he could be blaming herself like she is. But that’s ridiculous, he didn’t do anything wrong.

“Hey, Terra! I made breakfast for us.” She’s thankful that Ven doesn’t say anything, though, having taken a treat-it-as-normal approach to—well, everything. It can’t be the easiest thing.

“Just make sure that you didn’t add any sugar to the eggs, or else we’ll have a riot on our hands.” It’s a lame attempt at a joke, one that makes him crack a small smile.

“That’s just taking it too far,” he says. “Maybe I do like sugar, but there are some lines that can’t be crossed.” He fills a plate for Terra, then one for himself.

“Exactly, and that line sits at ‘absolutely nothing sweet.’”

“You’re being ridiculous!”

“You’d eat cake for breakfast if we let you; I don’t think I’m the ridiculous one.” He ruffles Ven’s hair as the other pouts at him.

Aqua lets out a small laugh; it seems appropriate for now. Watching them argue over sweet tooths or the lack thereof almost brings her back to when everything was normal. When there wasn’t that fog everywhere, thickened over her thoughts and making them sluggish.

Breakfast is short. Time almost compressed itself for Aqua, but by the time it’s over, she never wants to see another plate of eggs again. Bits of the gray-tasting—and she’s sure if it were possible to taste a color, this would be what gray tastes like—food have glued themselves to the corners of her mouth, leaving her tongue sticky and slow.

Then the kitchen needs to be cleaned. Terra washes the dishes, she rinses, Ven dries, and Chirithy insists on helping today by putting away everything. It goes by more quickly than she’d expected, but so does everything these days. Even with clocks everywhere she could need them, time seems to slip away from her more and more.

Aqua snaps herself out of her daze to find that she’s been washing the same section of the table for some time, methodically leaning over it and back again with every pass of the dishcloth. One half-hearted swipe later, she rinses it at the sink.

Chirithy, on its way past her with a stack of dried plates, clears its throat. The message is clear enough.

“Yes,” she murmurs, “after we finish cleaning up breakfast.”

“I hope so.”

The snark, almost lost in the clatter of putting away plates, is a surprise, if a rather interesting one. It’s not entirely undeserved, though; they’re all but— they’re done with the cleanup, really. Chirithy has every right to be skeptical, but she’s going to do what it asked.

”In a little bit,” and it’s an absent answer that would never have come to be. A little bit would have turned into five minutes would have turned into ten, she realizes later, but the Dream Eater had realized that long before her.

“Well, can you take me off the counter? I don’t want to jump that far down with all these towels.”

Chirithy is holding exactly two small dishtowels, but Aqua indulges it anyway. The moment she picks it up, however, it seizes upon the opportunity it’s made for itself.

“Everyone!” And everyone does, indeed, turn to look at Chirithy. “Aqua has something she wants to say.”

Aqua immediately sets it down, almost missing the _“sorry,”_ it murmurs to her as it runs off to do something with the towels, not that the apology changes much.

“Yes? What is it?” Either Terra or Ven said that, but she can’t tell which.

“I think,” and she’s never wanted so much to melt into the ground, “that— we need to talk. About everything.”

Now, with the other two developing a fascination with anything but her eyes, Aqua realizes she’s not alone. Whether or not that’s good remains to be seen. The fact that they’re in the dining room, of all places, about to talk about something Great and Serious seems both right and wrong at the same time. It’s where they’ve gathered for so much, it’s where they’ve all talked and laughed and—something’s special about it, Aqua can’t articulate what. Perhaps they shouldn’t contaminate this special place.

But she can’t stop now. “We need to talk about everything that happened. It’s been twe—” her throat catches for the briefest second, “—elve years now and we’ve been talking about it, but— no, we’ve been talking _around_ it more than anything else. It’s not something we— I can ignore. I’m sorry, I can’t stand it anymore.”

_And Chirithy told you to talk, otherwise where would you be?_

They both look like they want to say something very much, even if that something is still caught in their throats and heads, so she stops.

_Didn’t you want to apologize, or are you too much of a coward to own up to everything?_

_Light_ , she hates that voice and the dead tone it carries with it. But it’s right; she has to apologize.

“And— I’m sorry.” It comes out more like a throaty whisper, rather than the strong thing she’d wanted it to be.

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Aqua.” Terra is the first to speak, grabbing onto his voice with a firmness she envies. “Y _ou_ didn’t do anything wrong.” It’s either her imagination, or he’s put an extra emphasis on the “you,” as if he’s to blame.

“And _you_ did? Is that what you’re trying to imply?” She’s angry and doesn’t know why her mood escalated so suddenly.

**_Wait what about—_ **

_“Guys,”_ Ven whispers in an attempt to stop _something_ before it starts, but Aqua can’t pay attention to _that_ or **_that_** now.

“So what if I am.” He keeps going, seemingly oblivious to fact that everyone wants—needs him to stop before he goes any further. “I was the one who trusted Xehanort and hung onto his every word like some stupid idiot. Shouldn’t I of— I _could’ve_ tried harder to keep him out, you know, so why _isn’t_ it my fault?”

 _“Terra.”_ She doesn’t understand what he’s doing, why he’s saying this when he’d fought for so long, just like everyone else. “If that’s all your fault, then look at me! I didn’t even suspect anything afterwards, I didn’t even question where he’d gone after the Graveyard; _I_ let him roam around doing— who knows what he did! I could’ve helped free you, but I didn’t even stop to think! And who knows _how_ many people turned into Heartless because I let him go free.”

Whether or not that’s her fault can’t matter in this moment, she has to prove her point: she isn’t blameless either. Regardless of actual culpability, there _is_ something she could be blamed for.

“Aqua,” Ven tries again, “Terra, all that wasn’t your fault. We didn’t know, and he’s at fault here.”

She knows. Somewhere during the hour—barely one, in fact—she’s been awake, she’s been able to fully accept that, but that can’t change how she feels, or that voice in her mind. It can’t change the fact that greasy guilt fingers are resting on her shoulders and sliding down her back one at a time.

”No...there’s no way he could’ve possessed me if I’d actually been resisting.”

Something akin to dumb panic must’ve gutted her and Ven and Chirithy; they can’t speak. Time stutters and flails to a stop, protesting all the while. That can’t be true. No, not can’t, it _isn’t_.

“No, no, stop that, don’t even _think_ that—”

“—it makes sense, though, don’t you see—”

“—how does that make any sense? Why would—”

He’s shaking his head ever so slightly, dismissing any and all claims contrary to his belief. Light, she hopes he won’t bring Master Eraqus into this; she refuses to, and so will Ven, she’s sure, maybe he’d even made peace with that, at least, _**but this isn’t the time, it’s not the time when we’re all like this—**_

“—guys, _stop_ , please, just stop—”

“—your armor—”

The room’s widening as her heart thump thump _thumps_ in her chest, jittering out of control as she floats into the air with her feet on the ground. It’s curving in, sagging under the weight of the fuzz that’s everywhere now. Her guilt’s grabbed her by the neck and won’t let go. What has she done?

“—I didn’t mean this when I told you to talk, Aqua, and _Terra_ , you need to—”

Ven's clutching at Chirithy, looking like he’s telling it something, and the other is nodding, it’s head bobbing up and down at the corner of her vision.

 _“—how else_ would he have overtaken my heart so easily—”

“—stop it, can’t we talk about this normally for once?”

“—more skilled than any of us then, that’s how—”

“—wanted him to, Light, why—”

“—would you think that, there wasn’t any reason—”

“Shut **_up!”_**

Ven's breathing is agitated underneath a thin layer of calm, too deep and too quick to be normal. Chirithy is standing off to the side, trying hard to ignore his livid companion. Somewhere in the stacks behind cabinet doors, a dish cracks. Then another. She’s been yanked back down to the floor from her floating.

“You guys want to play this game, huh? Want to put the blame all on you? Well, maybe let’s not forget about _me.”_ His voice cracks up on the last word, almost shattering in his anger. But for all the cracks, it remains together and unbroken. “Let’s _all_ play this game. One! I didn’t make the χ-Blade for Xehanort at the very beginning, _apparently_. So _that_ led to everything else going from there. Two, I ran away and ended up making the χ-Blade _anyway_. Look at that, I’m a horrible person too.” He finishes with a horribly wild grin that doesn’t reach to his eyes.

“Ven,” Terra says, shocked out of his guilt, “that didn’t—”

 _“No!_ Oh, and who gave you _that_ brilliant idea that you’d wanted to be possessed? You can’t tell me that you thought that up yourself.”

“It—” He looks shocked, as if he hadn’t fully considered the source of this information. “But I did, I must’ve; how else could—” He clenches his fist, then unclenches it, and Aqua can almost swear she sees faint, purple-black swirls behind him, pouring throughout the whole room. The air chills as one corner of the room, right near Ven, starts to frost. “He—”

“That’s what I thought.” The smile drops from his face, which has become unexpectedly serious. He takes a shuddering breath before continuing. “It’s all over, and why are we blaming ourselves? Why does it have to be our fault? Aren’t we forgetting a certain— old— _fuck?”_

Aqua can’t correct him for swearing if she’s thought the same thing of that man a thousand times. Terra’s too stricken to say anything now, both of them are; the only thing they can do is watch.

“So what if we trusted Xehanort?! So what if we didn’t know what he was doing? Even _Master Yen Sid_ can’t understand half of his plans, even now, when we _maybe_ know all about them!

 _“He’s_ the one at fault! _He_ started everything when he split me in half, and then he— and! He just—! And Ma— he just let him— they— and now we’re—” He heaves, thick tears pouring down his cheeks, before he screams, “I _hate_ him!”

He doesn’t say who he hates, doesn’t make any attempt to clarify his anger. His chest rises and falls with a faint wheeze, and Chirithy immediately runs over. Aqua and Terra follow with care, so that he won’t be too overwhelmed, or they won’t be overwhelmed; Aqua doesn’t know which.

“I know,” Chirithy says mournfully, squeezed into Ven’s chest now. “And you’re all left to deal with the mess.”

 _At least,_ Aqua thinks with bitterness, _we’ve stopped arguing on who’s to blame for now. I almost can’t believe that was what it would take to do._

“It isn’t— it’s not _fair,”_ he mutters. “Why can’t everything be normal again.”

“Ven.”

“Ven.”

Just a word was all they needed to say. Not to divert, not to say that it would be better later on. Just to acknowledge that they would give him as much time as he needed.

His eyes are still closed, and he furiously swipes at one. They kneel down and draw him close.

“Don’t. I don’t want— nevermind, I don’t know—”

“You’re right.” It’s Terra who speaks now, surprisingly. “We have to stop blaming ourselves, I guess. We have to move on. That’s all we can do, now, isn’t it.”

“We can’t just stay where we’re at,” Aqua whispers, finally having found her voice again. “We’re still here. We’re still standing. Isn’t that enough for now?”

They’re all so exhausted from baring their hearts; they don’t have any room in them left to argue. Ven least of all. They just lean closer into each other, not caring how much time passes. Right now, they need each other, need support and love and touch _(it’d been hard for all those years with only the icy air in the Realm of Darkness)_ more than anything.

Eventually, there’s the rest of the day to get to. There’s still a whole life ahead, and they need to start sometime. That sometime isn’t now; that’d be impossible. It’ll be later, yes, but it will be. When they can put the past behind them, then they can start.

Breakfast is long over. It’s time to train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaah sorry this took so long. I just got stuck on how to accurately work out everything, and I also started what will hopefully be a great big longfic. Anyway, there’s a lot of stuff in here, and a few hints at a later development. Let me know what you think in the comments; feedback is always appreciated!


	3. To Watch by Day—Both Mind and Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It doesn’t always have to hit rock-bottom before going up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for a private discussion of suicide, and a few mild references besides that. The entirety of the former is bolded, so you can skip through if you need. If you read the first version of this that I put out, it’s different.

It’d been a warm summer’s day, probably the warmest one she can remember. Whether it had been warm because of the heat or because of something else, however, Aqua can’t remember. But she can remember the rest very clearly. Every beam of sunlight, every breath of the library’s seasoned air, the just-raised ink of the books within. There was so much that afternoon, all of it rich and full.

The words they’d spoken are the only thing that fall flat and stale, but she’s somehow remembered everything else.

_The sunlight is streaming through every window, catching the thousands of motes of dust she’s made in her efforts to find that book. The book, itself, is surprisingly nondescript, considering all the knowledge it holds within. The Duties of a Keyblade Master, the title page reads._

_It’s not very accurate to call it a book, what with it being, in essence, a dissertation on an ancient poem penned by an unknown but legendary author. The book’s author is a legend in and of herself—Master Charta Igne, one of the youngest Keyblade Masters of her time._

_It had been the peak of an age of writing and literature for Keyblade wielders, so much of it coming from Scala and Igne. All of that gone now, and Master Eraqus wouldn’t talk about it._

There was a lot he didn’t talk about, and she doesn’t know if she wants to know about all that now, or ever.

_But to the then and past, the poem on the front page didn’t make sense. The meaning was buried under a few too many layers of vagueness, and some of the lines barely meant different things. Either the mysterious author had been mad, or Aqua wasn’t thinking hard enough._

_So it was there, right there, but she still couldn’t figure it out. There had to be something she was missing, Aqua thinks as she absently taps her pen against the paper. Her mind jumps up and down inside her, reaching up a bookshelf for answers with arms and legs that still haven’t hit a growth spurt._

_Maybe—no. It wasn’t that, nevermind._

_“Aqua?” It isn’t a question so much as a call back to reality. She jerks up to find that her thumb’s halfway in her mouth, the nail worried to a wet, soft fringe. “You’re having trouble with your studies?” He knows that, knows that she always bites her nails when she’s thinking hard, and doesn’t need an affirming answer. No, the Master just needs her to tell him what exactly she’s having with, and he’ll guide her through._

There was a time, once, when she thought that being a Master would mean that she would know everything there was to know; how to do everything that needed to be done, how to be the person everyone needed. Later on she found that Masters didn’t always know how to be perfect for any and every situation, and there were difficult choices they’d probably all gotten sleepless nights over. And now she knows that nothing is guaranteed and everything is different from the rose-flavored vision of her childhood. Something’s shattered, and now she’s falling from the too-high pedestal of expectation she made for herself.

_“I’m not sure what the poem is saying here,” she admits, pointing at the confusing line. “It’s ‘to watch by day’ right here, but earlier there’s ‘to guard at night’. I know they’re not the same thing, but I can’t figure out the differences in the meanings.”_

_“Then why aren’t they the same thing?” It’s the sort of question he’ll use to make them think more._

_“Well...they have to mean different things. But the meanings were lost in the translation, so?” Aqua looks up hopefully._

_“And?” There’s that little twinkle in his eye, so she’s on the right track._

_“They must apply to different situations. “‘Night’ can apply to Darkness; we have to be on guard against it. And that it’s called night can refer to the fact that it’s Darkness, and guarding means we have to watch for the various forms it comes in. It can be a temptation that seems harmless or friendly, and—”_

_“—that is correct.” He cuts her off unintentionally, trying to bring her back to the lesson at hand. “There is much more meaning here than first meets the eye. That is why it is important to consider what the ancient poets were thinking when they wrote. A line out of context can mean practically anything, but it is the context that makes it comprehensive.”_

_It’s odd, though. Why couldn’t it just be said outright, instead of hiding it in lines upon lines?_

_“Charta does give an extrapolation with the translation of another manuscript of the poem,” he continues, “one that had only just been found at her time. There are lines of clarification after each of the six lines you read here.” Master Eraqus flips a few pages to what, indeed, is a longer version of the poem._

_“‘To guard at night’ and the clarification is ‘—from any and all.’ The common conceptions are, yes, that it means one must be on guard during the vulnerable and darker hours. Those times do not make up a total of a life, however. Other facets of life exist...” He trails off, leaving the rest for her to work out._

_“Then that would mean,” and a sudden burst of inspiration hits as her mind reaches the top shelf, “that ‘to watch by day—both mind and body’ applies to everyday life.” The added line—or if it had been in the poem all along, the newly discovered line—flows out after the original line more easily than speaking. Aqua makes up her mind then and there that at least this version makes more sense._

_“And what does this translation say about the mind and body?”_

_That’s not a thinking question, it’s a trick question. The lines don’t say anything about mind or body, just that they’re there and must be watched. So that’s it? No, that can’t be all, that can’t be the sum total of the unspoken lines. There’s always something left unsaid in the ancient poems, always something that pulls a line into the here and now, speaking to the reader no matter their place. A Keyblade Master must watch both mind and body. Whose, then?_

_It’s like a book has fallen, striking her on the head with more realization._

_Aqua gives a small laugh in her glee. “It doesn’t say...whose it is that the Master should watch. It could be their own, or a student’s, or even—” she keeps on going. With every word she says another piece fits perfectly into the puzzle; she can start to make out an image “—both. They have to be mindful of the health of everyone around them, even themselves.”  
He’d given her a smile, and Aqua suddenly realizes that it might have been one of relief._

_“Yes,” he says. “Every one of the lines puts forth an important tenet of Keyblade wielders, but I believe this one is the most important, if, unfortunately, the most overlooked.”_

It hadn’t made sense then, at twelve, how someone could forget to take care of themselves. She wishes it didn’t now. She wishes, wishes, wishes, and still nothing changes.

_Oh, that’s right, she’d had a question. “Why do we have to puzzle this out with the smaller poem first? Can’t we just look at this version if it actually gives the meaning of it?”_

_“A Keyblade Master, despite the privileges that come with it, is a demanding task made up of many smaller ones. We cannot always see where the road ahead will lead. We must start where we are, rather than staying in a valley of uncertainty.”_

_It sounds daunting, the idea that even a Keyblade Master doesn’t always know what to do._

It is.

_But surely it would get easier with experience._

She’d been stuck in the— in there for ages. She doesn’t have any.

_“Even if we don’t know what lies ahead,” she repeats._

_“Exactly. It is easier to see with a complete picture, of course, but there isn’t always one.”_

_There isn’t always one. There isn’t always one._

The memory cuts off there. Aqua knows that they’d said more, but she can’t remember. It’s not new. Right?

 

* * *

  
“Aqua. Hey, it’s morning. Time to wake up?”

She squeezes her eyes shut more. If everything she felt guilty for is off her chest now, why does she still feel like this? She’d taken a shower the night before, one that didn’t leave her any less greasy-feeling than she does now. They were talking about it just yesterday, they’d sorted it all out, even. So why isn’t it better? Why is it worse?

No, that’s not right. It wasn’t yesterday, it was earlier than that. Maybe sometime in the last week was when they’d all blown up at each other. Or even before that.

“Can’t,” and even just saying it—

She’s almost choking on a lump that isn’t there. It’d be so much easier if it was gone, but it’s not there, so it can’t really go. Whatever it’s doing, though, it won’t let her rest wherever she is. It’s shoved itself down her throat and into her chest, sitting there. She can’t—do whatever it is she’s supposed to do. She should, but—

She needs to take another shower. The option of a bath presents itself, but that’d probably make her fall asleep. She has to do something, and the first thing she does is force down the lump again.

“Alright, then,” Terra chuckles. “I’ll be back in a little bit to get you. It is my fault for keeping you up last night, anyway.”

What had happened last night?

_Does that matter, though? He clearly doesn’t care about you enough to see that something’s wrong._

_**But I’ve been pretending I’m fine, that’s why he doesn’t know. I’m not telling him.** _

_That doesn’t excuse anything._

The realization as she’s shampooing her hair that she has no plan for Ven’s lesson today scalds her more than the shower water. The realization that, even with racking her brain for one, she has no idea for it scalds her more than that.

_It’s hopeless. You’re hopeless._

The water isn’t going down, down, down and disappearing to somewhere else anymore, the drain’s clogged somewhere and it only goes slowly. It pools at her feet and it’d be so easy—but she can’t. She can’t.

_But why can’t you? The morning will just turn into a day, and that’ll turn into another day, and another, and nothing will change. You’ll keep feeling horrible and it won’t stop. It’s better to let go and not be a coward. Come on, it’ll work._

Aqua fights it because she’s been fighting it for years, dammit; suddenly she’s as angry as she can be that whatever wants to kill her won’t try itself so she can fight it. Mildly annoyed, then.

_**Fine. Let’s entertain your fantasy,** yours_ because it’s not _hers_ and it’s _not_ her when she’s thinking like that.

**So say she did lay down and breathe in water until her lungs burst. What would she be thinking at that point?**

**Probably that Terra and Ven would understand, for some reason. She might want to talk to them one more time, but the second that she would breathe in, her body would protest and seize and jerk and gasp for air and send her facedown into the water and another panicked breath would lead to more water flooding into her lungs and another and more water and another and more and another and more and suddenly only at the last second would something click in her mind and let her realize what her body already has she doesn’t want to die but she’d be dead already and who’d be the one to find—**

 

 

Aqua tears herself away from that morbid picture. She won’t—can’t—go further.

But the opposite could happen and she could sort herself out in time.

It would probably take forever for her to claw her way out of the bathtub, slipping back into the water more times than she could count, but if she was lucky enough she’d keep her head above the water the whole time. She’ll have been shaking the whole time, with muscles screaming in exhaustion, but she could pull herself out and onto the bath mat. She’ll be soaking and shivering and sick to her stomach, that’s for sure. But she’ll get out in this scenario. Maybe she’d throw up all the water she’s sure to have swallowed throughout the ordeal—

Hadn’t Terra said he was coming back soon?

—and if she was lucky, some distant sound might float into her ears, and a distant shape might float over her eyes, and maybe she’d be moved somewhere, away from where she’ll collapse after getting out. It’d be warmer, the place where he’d bring her, even if her heart would be still stabbing through her freezing chest with every beat. The stabs might build up until she had to release it into a series of wheezing coughs, spitting up water and almost choking on the few drops that’d try to enter her lungs again, and that’d be a world of pain she’s not eager to start.

Nowhere near done, but she still steps out of the shower, pulling a towel around herself. She walks into the room.

Terra was waiting there, right at the door, and catches her up in a surprise hug.

Something’s burning in her eyes and blurring her sight. It’s not the shampoo that she still hasn’t washed out. Maybe it is, but that’s not important right now. Her chest is shaking up into her head until an ache grows everywhere. What does she even look like?

It still hurts to move. It still hurts to think. Fighting back didn’t change that.

“Something’s wrong.” That probably isn’t a question, but what matters is that that fuzzy shape is a ready-to-listen Terra.

She thinks she might’ve breathed a _yes_ through the roaring in her ears.

Oh, right, that. Now that she remembers it, it’s back in full force. Fuller force, actually, and the jar lid tightens over her neck, not that she can pay much attention to it with everything else going on. Scratch that, that’s wishful thinking. That’s the only thing she can focus on. But the important thing is that there’s something she can do. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t know it right now.

“I’m so sorry,” comes out on a gasp, and then, “I thought— I wanted to—”

She can’t even say it now; what had seemed like the best thing for everyone just a few minutes ago is now unthinkable for her. A click resounds through her mind and with the realization that _she almost lost this, she was this close to never seeing Terra or Ven or even Chirithy again_ she finally breaks down in Terra’s arms.

“—thought it’d help. I was so tired. ‘m sorry,” and just saying it is terrifying, even if she doesn’t hear half of what she’s saying herself. “It was just for a little bit, but still—”

Somehow, he understands. He pulls her closer, neither of them caring that she’s soaking wet.

“I’m supposed to be taking care of you both. I didn’t do that well enough to notice you were struggling.”

“ ‘s not your fault,” she bubbles through her fading tears. To watch by day—both mind and body. She’s the one who should’ve been watching. A lump erupts in her throat and the tears come back, harder this time.

“Well, it’s not your fault either, Aqua. I need you to know that.”

Everything rushes by from there. Eventually she’s out of the towel, dressed in something casual and comfortable. It takes a few frantic calls before Goofy (no, she does not want to call Mickey, even if he is most likely to have a Gummiship) finally picks up. Then, with a few hours of flying, they reach Radiant Garden, with the captain having called ahead to find an appointment with some doctor she didn’t catch the name of. It’s dizzying, the amount of help that’s come up so quickly—that was always ready even before this morning, as everyone and Ienzo, though she barely knows him, are quick to remind her.

It’s so much love that she isn’t sure how to process it.

 

* * *

  
“Dr. Omma.” The woman extends a hand, which Aqua takes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“So, you...” she isn’t quite sure how to ask, “...are familiar with this...sort of thing?”

“From what I know about your case, I’ll have to say that I don’t understand the details.” Dr. Omma shrugs slightly. “If I may be frank, it’s almost too complicated for me to properly grasp it. The important thing, however, is for me to keep an open mind and see your health as it is. That way I can help you best.”

“Then I’ll just talk to you. Is that it?” That sounds too simple and clean-cut to work.

“That’s a very simplified version of it, but I’ll also ask you questions that you may answer as best you can, and we’ll find the best treatment for you going forward.”

Somewhere during their conversation, Aqua finds that it’s become easier to talk to Dr. Omma. If just talking about what she feels has anything to do with it, she doesn’t know. The woman listens, and it’s nice that she somehow knows exactly what to say. It’s also nice that everything is just between them—it provides some sense of security.

There’s a list she glances over (which she reads again and again on the way back) on how to maximize the benefits of medication, and one on how to take care of oneself (both mind and body repeats in her head) in simpler ways that don’t need her to expend so much energy. More information comes on how to recognize depression—it’s for all of them, the doctor says.

Near the end of the session—and it flies by—she schedules another appointment, and suggests that Terra and Ven come in for one as well.

If there was any reason for her to feel ashamed when picking up her medicine, Aqua can’t remember it. That little voice, at least for the moment, is being drowned out by everything else. It’s not that it’s gone—if anything, it won’t be for some time—she knows at least some ways to ignore it or counter it. Not entertaining it, though, will be the harder, if most important part.

And so the weeks pass by, even if nothing seems to change. Dr. Omma keeps telling her at their sessions that the results won’t be instantaneous, that it takes time, but still nothing changes that she can see. At least, not until Ven tells some joke so ridiculous it’s hilarious, and she finds that she’s laughing.

She’s _laughing_. _She’s_ laughing.

It isn’t something she’s forced out; _she’s_ laughing, and the realization alone is enough to make her bend over double, wheezing with joy until her laughs can’t be heard anymore.


	4. To Teach with Care—By Guiding with Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mutual suspicions of reactions to secrets end up leading to—not a confrontation, yet. Yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t blame any of you if you wondered if I was dead. Stuff happened and I was busy, but! The next chapter is well underway, and I am on a new kick with my original writing. Content warning for a brief description of taking medications (not sure about it so just putting it up in case).

Their Keyblades clash again and again, a pitched shink sounding out every time the edges catch. The training floor is already littered with the remains of several Blizzard spells, not to mention the heavy clouds of smoke that don’t hang so much as loom in the air. But neither of the two sparring gives—or will give, judging from how they’ve been going at each other without pause—any sign of stopping.

Ventus won’t back down. He’s eager, perhaps too eager, to prove that he is just as capable of fighting and becoming a Keyblade Master as anyone. It isn’t hard to see why.

Aqua is the same, minus the part about becoming a Keyblade Master. Still, it’s more about the fact that she’s in an environment where she can afford to lose—if she does—and remembering that.

But for all the intensity of their fight, there’s no denying that they both enjoy it.

Clambering up a mound of ice with an Aero spell to boost his ascent, Ventus launches himself straight down at Aqua, perhaps hoping that his momentum will break her block. The second their blades touch, however, only leads her into a roll backwards that slides him away.

Ventus hooks Aqua’s Keyblade with his, but she rolls away and summons it back into her hand in seconds. Aqua snags his jacket, but he slips out of it to make her stumble.

And so it goes on. Shotlocks and fiery orbs alike shoot through the air, just brushing against bodies or being dodged as the two nigh-on dance their way through the fight. It’s almost beautiful, the sheer intensity of blades clanging and blocking.

The hall doesn’t and won’t take any damage, of course. The spells of Masters throughout the years have strengthened it up to now, when the walls thrum with protective spells that never lessen. Fire leaves no scorch mark, wind shatters no window. The only spells that leave their mark are Blizzards, and even those chunks of ice will melt, wicked away into drains.

Still, as the fight beats on, the moment has to come when one of them gives. And that moment starts to arrive with a cloud of smoke from clashing Firaga spells. Both Aqua and Ventus take the initative to conceal themselves somewhat in the thick gray of it, and its gradual shrinking backs them into each other. This only restarts the fight’s intensity.

Ventus speeds around Aqua in a circle while firing spells at her, his swiftness backed by a mustering of Air spells. He chances a look away from her and misses, both the chance and the hint of ice she sets in his path. That’s enough to send him sprawling heels over head downward. And she takes advantage of that to sprint over to him and end the match.

“Hold,” she says, lightly touching her Keyblade to his chest as it slowly reaches for more air. Ven squints up through watery eyes at her, then said eyes travel down her arm and go cross-eyed at the Keyblade tip.

It’s a strangled sound of surprise that comes out of his mouth, as if he can’t believe that he’s lost. Then he looks back up at Aqua and slumps a bit.

“Aw,” he grins, “and I almost had you, too. Best two out of three?”

“Maybe later.” She stops to catch her breath. It’d been quite the intense battle, and the near-constant use of magic has drained them both. “But you’ve trained a lot already, I don’t see why you’d need another match.”

And he had trained, indeed. Today had been focused on strengthening magic and long-term use of spells in battle. The latter was rather dangerous without proper training; it was horribly easy to end up with frostbite or burns or even air embolism. The even worse danger was that the body would simply acclimate to those effects, and they would be permanent.

Ven sits up, crossing his legs. “So am I done, then?”

She looks at him with a smile traced across her face. “Are you trying to get out of training early?” It may be an accusation, but it’s a playful one, or at least that’s how she wants it to come across.

“No. I’m just curious. Anyway, you did say—”

“Yes, you’re done.”

“Ha!” He leaps up, definitely more cheery than he has been for some time. “I’ll be in my room if you need me. Gonna get some studying and stuff done. Bye!”

That being said, he runs up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time until it looks like he’s floating above them. Not a few seconds later, she can hear a door faintly open and shut. Again. He’s been up in his room, “studying” (and she doesn’t like that she’s so suspicious of it) for most of his spare time for the past few weeks.

“I think that’s a new record for him,” Terra remarks as he walks into the training hall. “Sorry I didn’t get to see the match, but how was it?”

“It was good,” she replies, most of her attention on melting the larger chunks of ice. They’ll melt on their own, yes, but she can’t risk the possibility that the water won’t all melt into the drains—that would lead to mold in the floor. “He’s gotten better at using spells over a longer period of time. I’ll just have to remind him about keeping focus on his opponent.”

“Do you think he’d agree to an endurance match against me tomorrow?”

“I’m sure he’d love to, but we might have to scale back on magic for the next few days. He needs to build it up more slowly.”

There. That was the last big chunk of ice gone, and the only ones left were around ice-cube size.

“It’s three o’clock,” he prompts her gently, and she glances up at the clock that confirms, to her surprise, that it is indeed three o’clock. Or as near to it as she can make out.

“Ah, thank you.”

It’s to the kitchen, then, that she goes, where she can twist open a cap and take some of her pills for the day. Training is nearly always over by three, and if it isn’t, it’s close enough that she can end it without feeling guilty about it. It was better to take it afterwards than before or in the middle of it; the headaches could get bad enough that she wouldn’t be able to concentrate through them.

“I’m a little worried about Ven,” she admits to Terra, sipping down the rest of her glass of water. Just small sips, one at a time, that was the key to getting through it. “I’m not sure exactly why, though.” And it’s odd that she can’t think of why, she used to consider herself rather good at reading people’s emotions.

“You may have a bit of a point,” he says. “He hasn’t been talking to me so much in the past few weeks. I wasn’t sure if it was something I said, but if he hasn’t been talking to you either...” He trails off, leaving the end for her to complete.

“I don’t remember him talking a lot either,” she finishes. “I didn’t know if it was just me, though.”

“I guess it’s not. Maybe we should bring it up...no, nope, forget I said that,” he ends up answering his own question, with a pause in the middle that had ended with a wide-eyed vision of the worst possible outcome.

“I wonder if he figured out the waking-up thing,” she suddenly muses, “and he’s angry about that.”

“How would he have, though? You only told me about that, and I know I didn’t tell him.”

She rolls her eyes. “Terra, if we figured out how to eavesdrop before his age, he won’t be an exception.”

“Then just tell him,” he suggests. “If he does know, then it could put him in a better mood that you’re telling him. If he doesn’t, well,” he shrugs, “it had to come up sometime, right?”

So she takes the suggestion. She’ll go up and talk to Ven, right after she finishes her water.

 

* * *

  
As soon as training ends, Ventus runs to his room and sinks down beside his door. That had been too close. Even if there wasn’t any huge danger in it, he isn’t going to tell Aqua and Terra anytime soon, and any step towards that becoming a reality was an immediate assurance that he’d take some very noticeable steps backwards.

“Too close,” he mutters, half to himself, “can’t tell them that—”

**“Tell them what? Oh, right, that you’re harboring me in your heart. That’d be just terrific, don’t you think? It’d go over well, for sure and certain.”**

So Vanitas _is_ back. He’d appeared sometime during the ensuring panic of _oh Light there’s a Keyblade at my chest again_ that came out of—nowhere?—and disappeared in the inherent panic of _she knows how am I going to explain this?_ But he’d been around enough that Ventus could tell that he was tired, for some reason.

“Tell them what?”

Oh. Chirithy is in here, he’d almost forgotten.

“Uh, just some stuff. I actually have to talk to, um,” he gestures vaguely at his chest, “you know, so I need some privacy for that.”

“Of course!” Chirithy has been remarkably calm about this all. It must’ve been in the job description, something along the lines of, “employee must not freak out in weird situations regarding hearts.” “Tell Vanitas I said hi!”

Ventus winces. That was really too loud, but back to the situation at hand. He closes the door after Chirithy.

 **“A greeting from a cat,”** Vanitas muses. **“I guess I can accept that, as greetings go.”**

“Where did— where do you even go when you’re not here?” It’s up in the air whether or not Ventus actually needs to talk in order for Vanitas to hear him, but talking gives a sense of realness to the conversation. Anyway, he doesn’t want to consider that the other can read his thoughts.

**“I don’t know, actually. Somewhere darker than this.”**

He stops after that unhelpful description, but it feels to Ventus like a pause of sorts. As if he’s about to say something else, then the pause feeling changes to a stop feeling.

“Helpful,” he snarks back, now that his heart isn’t going to hammer its way through his rib cage anymore, “very helpful.”

**“Of course.”**

They stop there for a second before Ventus decides to continue. “Cool fight, wasn’t that?”

**“Not that I saw. I was around for the two seconds of you _losing_.”**

He can’t figure why he’s trying to make small talk with Vanitas, of all people. Maybe because neither of them is going to yield on the matter of talking about anything serious. Vanitas isn’t, Ventus figures, because he’s stubborn. Ventus isn’t because his whole body is tired, and if he tries to talk about anything involving weightiness and/or his technical brother, his brain will also be tired. That would just lead to a general spread of tiredness, and it’s never fun to have that.

“Too bad you didn’t get to see me just winning right before that.”

The only response he gets is a circling feeling deep in the center of his chest, like Vanitas is pacing around on his heart station or something.

_I wonder if I could go down there and see?_

That’s a pipe dream, though. Dives to the Heart are notoriously difficult to pull off without something very important happening before, and a lot are rather accidental.

“And I _was_ winning,” he decides to repeat, in case the other is trying to ignore him. He gets up and flops onto his bed. Sitting on the floor was a dangerous activity, what with all the proneness to having several or more limbs fall asleep.

**“Yep. I believe that. Lots of winning from you, hooray.”**

“Would it be so hard to not be like that?” Being normal with him is hard enough for Ventus; the constant snarking from the other end doesn’t do anything to help, even if he is trying his best.

**“Maybe.”**

He wonders if Vanitas has actually made it his personal mission to pester him as much as possible. He’d been nothing but trouble ever since he showed up in his head/heart/probably heart/actually heart because where else would he be.

“That _isn’t_ helpful.”

Eh, not like saying that is going to help either.

 **“Do you want me to go or something?”** And it’s a mocking tone that rings through his head.

That...wasn’t helpful either. But getting annoyed at Vanitas is a waste of the random minutes when they can actually talk without drawing suspicion. Even if they get nowhere today, Ventus refuses to be the one to lose control of himself.

“Whatever. Leave, if you want; I don’t care.” Doesn’t he, though? Just enough, at least, to be somewhat worried for him when he disappears without a sound of doing so, or a hint of his presence.

**“Feeling awfully chatty, aren’t we? Not even going to try to pry me out and away from here, or am I not that big of a threat to you?”**

He shrugs in response before remembering that Vanitas can’t hear that. “Well, you’re here now, and I guess you have been for some time. There isn’t any way to take you out without damaging us both, so why should I try.”

The other mutters an incomprehensible something that rings in his chest. Ventus doesn’t try to ask what it was. Just, “If you say so,” and the ringing stops. He’d say it stopped in a shocked emotion, but he’s still trying to parse out what Vanitas feels, and what he feels, and what each emotion of the former feels like (and sometimes the latter).

 **“What’s new besides all that?”** Vanitas’s question is so far out of the ordinary, Ventus doesn’t quite know how to respond.

“Well,” and he pauses for a split second to root around for some new bit of anything, “Riku and Kairi are preparing to go look for Sora. I’m not sure if anyone else is going, but that’s something.”

 **“Interesting,”** is all he has to say to that.

“Why do you ask?”

**“I’m bored down here. Anyway, do they have an idea on where the idiot is?”**

“Don’t call him that!” He has the flashing emotion of indignation, and he hopes Vanitas can feel that. “And you were the one who was saying we were all brothers, so you doubly don’t get to call him that.”

 **“Did I, now? I never met met the idiot,”** oh, he definitely said that again on purpose, **“so why would I say a thing like that?”**

And Ventus is forced to remember, again, that he’s dealing with a Vanitas who doesn’t remember the events of a few months ago. That makes the dealing with both harder and easier. Easier in that he isn’t forced to bring up the last conversation they had before these ones, but harder in that he can’t bring up the last conversation they had before these ones.

It was easier when these conversations weren’t even a thing, actually. Then he didn’t have to think so hard about Vanitas and all the messy Xehanort-induced complications that came with that.

“You had,” he ends up replying. “You don’t remember that one, though.”

**“Any other ones I don’t remember?”**

“Not really anything important.” No, he will _not_ give Vanitas the verifiable bombshell of “Venty-Wenty.” If he’s forgotten it, good. At least, until he figures it out again.

**“That’s too bad.”**

“Mmh.”

And suddenly neither of them is in the mood to talk anymore. So Ventus just sits on his bed, waiting for the moment when Vanitas will perhaps continue the conversation. It doesn’t come, and he can feel his swirling presence fade bit by bit. He doesn’t know if he misses him or not right now, but he doesn’t know why he’s wondering. The answer should be obvious, even if it isn’t.

What isn’t obvious, but should be, is how he’s going to break the news—to whoever. He’s just about crazy trying to keep it all to himself, and he really rather wouldn’t be. That way led to possible breakdowns and ever-mounting levels of stress, and who wanted that?

Obviously, he couldn’t tell Aqua or Terra. Yet. They were both still recovering, and to introduce Vanitas into the mess their lives were all in would be a load of chaos. Chaos that had been diluted into a thick sauce, to be specific. It was just a few weeks ago that he’d been prying information out of Terra, to figure out what had happened to Aqua with a desperate hope that every one of the scenarios that’d come up in his head were false. They weren’t ready.

Anyway, Vanitas himself wasn’t ready for the introduction. Maybe in the hopefully not-so-very distant future, he’d mellow out. Or find a hidden store of calmness for meetings.

Nevermind.

Riku might understand, but surely he doesn’t know the older(?) boy well enough to broach any sensitive subject with him. Kairi is the same. The list in his head runs through Naminè and Roxas and Xion before screeching to a halt in the realization that even if he knew them better than he already does, he doesn’t want to talk with them about this. And they do know each other well. They’ve talked about—stuff, and they’ve all helped each other get through things.

This is just a little too personal right now. Anyway, if he can’t trust himself to talk about this (why is he avoiding thinking about the _this_ ) to Aqua and Terra because of personal issues, then everyone is out of the picture too.

So he sits and thinks until his brain starts to hurt, with cut-off possibilities and definite would-be-failures of plans to slowly introduce him.

Maybe it would’ve been easier if Vanitas had just physically reappeared somewhere. Then they’d be focusing on him and not on Ventus, because any conversation with Vanitas now has to go through the channel of “he is somewhere inside of my heart and won’t that be fun to address.”

_Is someone coming down the hall? Oh, yep, that’s a someone._

Aqua would be worried about that issue in particular. Maybe too worried, but in the end she’d be worried. And—

Three quick knocks sound, which would’ve been a surprise had he not heard the pair of armored boots clacking down the hall long before. It’s an easy but necessary precaution to sit up on his bed with a bit too much noise, to tell Vanitas to pipe down, even though he isn’t talking and maybe isn’t here. Aqua’s standing at the door when he opens it.

“Ven,” she says, and just that word was enough to send his heart thumping a bit over the threshold of comfortable, “I have a question.”

Scratch a bit over the threshold of comfortable, try heart attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so now appears the trash boy. Hoo boy I’ve planned for him since the beginning, and I’m so excited that he’s finally here. Drop a comment below to let me know what you think!


	5. To Deal in Truths—Though They Be Pained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things come out, and others, well—don’t. But in the end, everything will. Of course, now’s not the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw shit I’m sorry this took so long. I don’t really have an excuse so here it is. Also it’s like 1 in the morning for me so I’m just going to hope for the best haha I’m in pain.

Aqua stands at Ven’s door, wondering why it’s taking so long for her right here. She just has to knock at his door and tell him everything. It’s no big deal.

_That’s a lie, you’re lying to yourself. But it’s not going to be as horrible as you think it’s going to be. It’s a big deal for you, yes, but it may not be for Ven. And you two will talk it out, and everything will be better for that._

She knocks.

Ven looks a little surprised, as he opens it, that she’s at his door, but he takes the question gamely.

“What’s your question?” Answering a question with a question, and the answer to the latter will be a question as well. Maybe that’s a little amusing.

“Well, it might be a long conversation, so I’ll just take a seat.”

“Sure thing, I—” He glances at one of the two chairs in the room, covered in a mound of clothes. “—meant to clean that up later—” He gathers said mound in his arms, nudges his closet door open, and drizzles the clothes on the floor. Then he shuts the door. “—that’s not going to be permanent, it’s just for now.”

Now is not the time nor the place for a lecture on his cleaning habits. Or lack thereof.

“So. The question.”

She can’t even look at him. That means it’s best to get it over with.

“You remember when you first woke up, right? When I was on the ground, and—”

“— _yeah_. Yeah, I remember that. Mostly. It’s a little fuzzy, but I think I saw it through S-Sora’s eyes.” Who’s gone now, and nobody knows where.

Her heart’s hammering away at her ribcage. She’s breathing in thick, stale air and wants to stop.

**_Liar, liar, liar. Light, Master, you’re_ awful _._**

_No._ She has to stop thinking that way. Even if her medications help, she has to do part of the process herself.

“I— I needed to— It’s a bit complicated and— but you need to know that—” Somewhere in the next five minutes, a load of stammerings pours out of her mouth, but she thinks she might’ve been able to confess how she’d gotten him to wake up.

_“So Ienzo said Ven’s heart would need some kind of a push in order to wake up,” Sora explains. “A way to recall his memories so he can enter his body again.”_

_“Was there any explanation of what that “push” might be?” With luck it’d be so hugely simple as seeing her again—but if he hadn’t when Sora and she first met, he wouldn’t now. Or maybe being in the Land of Departure, and the castle would do it._

_“Er, I don’t remember if he said anything on that,” he says._

_“Well,” Aqua replies after some deliberation, “we’ll find a way.”_

_But when they find Ven, his body just lays there, slumped over on the throne and barely even moving to breath, unless that was just wishful thinking._

_“Ven. I’m sorry it took so long. But you have to wake up.”_

_Some days back in the Castle, he’d unconsciously rebuff every attempt of hers to wake him up. Short of a slight shake to the shoulders, but even that wasn’t working now. She can only stare at his limp body some more—and not even that will do anything._

_Why. Why why why’s dance on top of a moment, echo in her skull until she doesn’t hear if she said anything. Had his heart never found it’s way home? Those words ring out into a larger space than just her head, reminding her that she had to—used to have to but never would again, if everything, anything good in the worlds still wished it—say her thoughts in order to hear them._

_Why could nothing be_ fair _. Her heart catches in her throat, forcing down anything else she might’ve wanted to say, until another voice liquified it into her stomach._

_“That was a neat little trick,” he says, drawling his words into a rasp. “Guess that’s why nobody could find him.”_

_“Vanitas!” Sora has seen him before, in some other world, but he’s here now, and however that’s happened doesn’t matter—_

_“Why are you here?” She wants to, needs to sound imposing and confident. Anything less than that, he won’t take seriously._

_Vanitas doesn’t take it at all. “I’m_ sorry _to interrupt your little reunion, but surely you won’t deny me my_ own _reunion? With my_ brother _?”_

_She won’t even think about what that last word might mean to him._

_Sora tries, with the two others, to rush at him— but he just flashes through them in less than an instant— and to one of a hundred other places in the next. Wherever he’s gone, though, it can’t be to do anything good. A few seconds, each one extended by panic, pass before she sees him sitting on top of Ven’s throne. She won’t stand for the sheer disrespect of the castle and of Ven, and leaps up in the air to attack._

_He’s mumbling something she can’t catch, save for the end: “What am I ever going to do with you?” After that, her Keyblade slams down onto his, which had materialized just in time to block. How nice for him._

_“Why don’t you just settle down,” and then, like an afterthought, he adds a sarcastic “Master.”_

_But she won’t let him get a rise out of her. A leap backwards, hovering in the air, will be enough to taunt him into going forward and meeting her challenge. And it is, and the fight starts._

_He attacks, she guards; he guards, she attacks, and—_

_It just wears on and on, with too much of the wearing being on her. Maybe it was to be expected. After all, she’d fought and fought and fought in the Realm of Darkness for so long all her adrenaline was gone, and a few hours’ rest wouldn’t have helped that in the slightest._

_And then one shot. One shot gets through out of all the ones she’s blocked and hits the barrier, spreading outward in jagged cracks._

_The damage is too much; her barrier can’t take one more hit before it’ll shatter in an ever-increasing hole. Vanitas is going to launch another attack on it, that’s sure. But all she has to do is block it, throw up another shield, anything. Even if that would just make her more exhausted, she would—_

_No. She can end it all and wake Ven up, with one grand gesture that would, she hoped, conflate the two successfully.  
_

_Vanitas is preparing some spell, whatever it is exactly doesn’t matter, just that if she throws herself in front of it, Sora’s ensuring panic would spread to Ven. It’s a risky gambit, her thoughts race out in a klick a minute as her legs race to get in front of the crack, and even if she channels most of her mana to her chest, there is the possibility that it won’t be enough to protect her. It’s either stupid or brilliant, but genius and foolishness are two sides of the same coin. Or so she’d read somewhere, probably the castle library._

_The spell, some sort of dark fire, connects, and the force of it sends her sprawling. Her eyes open just a crack, she can see Vanitas raising his Keyblade ever-so-slowly over her. Either she’d been hit harder than she thought, or he’s doing it too slowly—and then the glittering sound of glass breaking sounds, and Ven is flying toward him._

Unless that was just what she told herself. Unless she really had thrown herself in front of the barrier as a shield, with no other plan in mind, and she was just trying to rationalize her horrible, ill-thought decision. Maybe that really was what happened. Maybe— yes, that was it, she probably was just stupid.

She wants almost to go back and scream at the her of a few weeks ago, but it had worked. Whether she had or hadn’t thought it out, it had worked out and she knew better than to do the latter. At the very least she did now.

_**Stop lying. Stop being so pathetically simperish. You didn’t do it on a spur-of-the-moment selfless streak. You just lied so he’d wake up. Liar. Liar.** _

_No. You’re not going to think like this. You did something that you had to do, and you can stop doubting yourself now. You’re capable of so much. Don’t sell yourself short._

Somewhere during the course of all this, Ven’s stopped looking at her.

“Can I have a moment for myself?”

Oh. He was angry at her.

“I’m not— angry or anything, I just need a moment to process this and also breathe and things,” he started to ramble off, before a nervous look overcame his face.

He closed the door, staring pointedly at the doorknob until a click sounded. Then a shuffle, and a mattressed fall onto probably his bed. A succession of three sounds before a fourth, a noisy and long sigh that might’ve been a scream muffled by a pillow.

It was long enough that Aqua considered just leaving and finding Ven sometime later, when he’d be calmer. And then he got up, judging from the creaking, and opened the door again. She took her seat again; he was ready to continue.

“Before— anything else, I need to tell you that if you weren’t a Keyblade Master, you’d probably be a professional actress. Seriously, that was convincing.” He takes a deep breath before continuing. “I just needed a bit of time to process that new information, because it’s a little weird to find out something like this...now.”

“I was concerned that it might be a lot.”

“Oh, it’s not, don’t worry about that. Just interesting to find out that even in a life-or-death situation, you still have to resort to drastic measures to get me awake.”

His face— it’s so deadpan innocent that a laugh snorts out her nose and cheeks. Then that sets Ven off, and pretty soon they’re howling in laughter over one of his lame jokes. It must have been the nervous tension

“But seriously, it’s all good,” he grins.

Maybe he isn’t telling the truth. He must be angry in some capacity, he’s just not telling her. Aqua’s known him and Terra for long enough to be able to tell when either is hiding something from her, and now is one of those times. But she won’t press him.

“Thank you,” she says, and means it. “I felt that I needed to tell you, though, because it felt that way to me.”

“It is just a little weird,” he repeats, agreeing with her. “But I think I’m more than glad, in hindsight. You didn’t get hurt, and that’s good.”

“Thank you,” she says again, not sure of what else to say, then remembers the other reason. “I also wanted to ask you another thing.”

 _That_ gets him looking at her with a slightly guilty expression. “About?”

“Well...” She can’t go out too blunt; he’ll just shut down. “It seems that you’ve been trying to avoid us, and we’re worried for you.”

“Oh, I just thought I was working and studying and stuff...” He trails off, lost in thought. Then he looks up. “Was that what you thought— I mean, I guess I have been rushing just to get to my room and study more, and I can see how that would look— you know?”

“Yes, um,” she responds in a brilliant fashion. “That’s what it looked like. And we were worried.” And she’s said that for the second time.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“Okay.”

That’s all that has to be said; he has his intentions here and they didn’t harm anyone. Light, Dr. Omma has been rubbing off on her if she’s starting to think in this verbose-but-sensible way—and she enjoys it. It gives her thoughts direction these days.

“I really want to catch up to you guys, and I’m working as hard as I can for that,” Ven sighs. “But, y’know, I also don’t want it to seem like I’m afraid of you guys leaving me behind. Because I’m not.”

He’s not telling the complete truth, or at least that’s how it looks. She hates to get suspicious on such small things as being slightly nervous, or not giving eye contact, or even a combination of the former two and a bucketful of other, minor things. And that’s what she’s doing. But if he isn’t telling her everything, that would _not_ be her business. That would be his, until he decided to share it, and in that case, she and Terra would help him if he needed it.

He’s trusting her in telling her this, and she will do the same—no matter what. It would be too unhealthy to dwell on small things—which this is.

“And, actually, I’ve also been thinking that we could expand our library collection, like find a bunch of texts from other traditions of the Keyblade besides the Scala, and I know that that’s the main thing, but I really feel that we’re just limiting ourselves by looking at only the big picture and not the small ones that make it up—”

“Alright, Ven,” she laughs, holding up a hand. “We’ll make plans for that in a little bit.”

“Really?”

“ _If_ we can find someone to castlesit for us, and I’m sure Terra will agree anyway.” It’s a good idea, to look for additions to the library. And they need a break.

So they talk a little more, about a dozen tiny matters she forgets as they switch to the next. The last time they did something like this was—well, it was long enough that she can’t remember more than a vague fuzz of it all. Eventually it tapers off, and she’s remembered a few more tasks for the day.

She turns to the door, walking out, but pauses halfway through. “Ven?”

“Yeah, Aqua?” He tilts his head from where he’s sprawled out on his bed.

“Don’t study too much. We’ll need you to come down for dinner, you know.”

He snorts. “You just don’t want me to beat you on trivia nights.”

“And that.”

They share one more laugh together, then she leaves him to his studies.

* * *

He rambled again. Why does that always happen when he’s hiding something?! Well, at least Aqua won’t ask him a huge bunch of questions about it. She favors the slow approach, where she waits for him to tell her and/or Terra everything on his own. It’s a little terrifying.

But she didn’t ask (and she’s gone so he can relax without looking suspicious), and that was good. He can just imagine how that conversation would go.

_“He doesn’t remember anything from recently,” He’d be quick to assure her, though a frantic undertone would de-fin-ite-ly bite through his words because it’s been biting through his teeth for the past few minutes. “I think it’s because he was taken from the past to come here, so he would’ve forgot everything when he came back.”_

_“Forgotten or not, it doesn’t change the fact that he did it then. I hate that I have to tell you this, but Vanitas could just be faking and I can’t risk the dangers posed by that possibility. For all our sakes, but most importantly yours.”_

_And then something would happen. Maybe Vanitas would drop from the ceiling, where—surprise!—he’d been hiding the whole time in an effort to drive him crazy. Maybe there’d be a fight._

Eh, that’s not being fair to Aqua; she’d start out by trying to understand. Then again, Vanitas is involved. “Trying” for anything is a moot point. He’d had to buckle down himself and resolve to grab his other half by the metaphorical ear in order to have anything resembling a normal conversation.

Speaking of Vanitas, he was definitely gone, the same as he was a few minutes ago—to wherever he went, when he disappeared. The fact of him being “somewhere darker than here” didn’t help him in trying to figure out where he was.

“Vanitas?”

Still no answer. Why did he care, anyway? It wasn’t like Vanitas did.

But someone had to.


End file.
